The STEM interest of high school graduates taking the ACT assessment has increased slightly over the past five years, according to ACT’s Condition of STEM 2014. About half of ACT-tested 2014 high school graduates expressed an interest in further STEM education or a STEM career. Interestingly, only half of the respondents who expressed STEM interest also scored as interested in STEM on the ACT Interest Inventory, indicating a potential mismatch between students’ education and career plans and students’ level of interest in STEM job activities. The sub-field in which STEM interest has most increased is engineering.
Despite the large percentage of students interested in STEM, STEM achievement still lags: less than half of graduates met ACT math and science benchmarks.
In related STEM news, the National Science Board has launched an online STEM data resource that pools the available data relevant to such questions as "how proficient are U.S. 12th graders in math and science?," "how many S&E [science and engineering] graduates attended community colleges?" and "what level of education do U.S. S&E workers have?"
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